Law Firm Investigating EA’s Botched Battlefield 4 Launch

Many gamers out there certainly feel misled by Electronic Arts’ handling of Battlefield 4, a shooter that, well after its October 29th launch on PC and last gen consoles and November 15th and 22nd release on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, is still rife with stability issues. Evidently, people who bought the game aren’t the only ones who are upset.

Here’s how we got here: on December 4, DICE announced that it had halted all work on future Battlefield 4 DLC to address the shooter’s many launch issues. Investors feared that Battlefield 4 sales as well as sales of its $50 Premium service would take a major hit, and as a result, EA would fail to hit its Battlefield-dependent quarterly forecast. That fear was realized the day after DICE’s announcement when EA’s stock tumbled 7.3%.

Enter the lawyers. Holzer Holzer & Fistel specializes in representation of shareholders and investors in litigation, and it evidently sees an opportunity with Electronic Arts’ handling of Battlefield 4. Here’s the official statement from the firm:

“Holzer Holzer & Fistel, LLC is investigating whether Electronic Arts, Inc. (“EA” or the “Company”) (NYSE: EA) and/or certain of its officers complied with the federal securities laws between July 24, 2013 and December 4, 2013. Specifically, the investigation focuses on statements issued during that time regarding the development and sales of the Company’s Battlefield 4 video game and the game’s impact on EA’s revenue and projects moving forward.”

“If you purchased EA common stock between July 24, 2013 and December 4, 2013 and suffered losses on that investment, you are encouraged to contact Holzer Holzer & Fistel, LLC attorney Marshall P. Dees, Esq. via email at mdees@holzerlaw.com, or via toll-free telephone at (888) 508-6832 regarding your legal rights.”

Battlefield 4 players, particularly those who shelled out $110 for the $60 game and a $50 Premium membership, are, justifiably, ticked off at EA and asking for refunds. Now it appears investors are, too. Maybe this will get EA to recognize it’s more important to create a quality game that actually works instead of focusing on simply monetizing a product.

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I’d say it’s wishful thinking that EA will learn from this. Drops in stock price haven’t stopped the company from looking for quick cash grabs and driving studios and/or game series into the ground before, so I don’t know that they’ll see the problem here.

I have no idea, why, whatever your opinion of EA, people should be happy that lawyers have to decided to set flight and circle what they believe to be a carcass of a game, simply because there are bugs in it. No launch in this day and age is ever going to be perfect an. This year with cross transition the workload for all multiplatform devs is even higher, not just EA.

Is it right that DICE focus on getting BF4 stable and working correctly? Yes. What are these other projects that DICE are supposedly working on? And more importantly have dates for release for these projects been set down, as without a date there is no fixed concept of delay or pushing back on shareholder expectations?

I don’t hold EA in particularly high regard but lawyers and ‘investigations’ like this just prove how parasitic these vultures are.

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